Field
This disclosure relates to increased success in detecting a motor vehicle improperly traveling against a designated direction of travel, reconciling signals among various system constituents to ensure the lack of a falsely positive identification of a wrong way event by a single detection signal, and providing an alert to the motor vehicle operator and to others in the vicinity of detection including to other vehicle operators who are most at risk of harm.
Description of Related Art
Over the last few decades, there has been a steady stream of catastrophic incidents related to head-on collisions. This occurs when a confused driver, operating a motor vehicle, enters a roadway traveling in the opposite direction to a designated direction of travel. While some drivers are driving while intoxicated, many drivers are lawfully operating their vehicles. For example, many drivers are just confused by placement of a new on-ramp, are driving under dark or severe weather conditions, or in locations with which they are unfamiliar. The result is the same—vehicles traveling against a designated direction of travel. Many of these instances occur in places where the speed of travel is high such as on divided freeways and the like.
Unfortunately, a confused driver often travels a substantial distance in the wrong direction before realizing what has happened. In all too many situations, a head-on collision occurs because the drivers and vehicles traveling properly in the correct direction do not expect a driver and vehicle to be traveling against their lane of traffic, and simultaneously the at-fault driver is not aware of the mistake. The speed of travel of many at-risk vehicles is often at or near freeway speeds. Head-on collisions usually involve catastrophic damage including death and severe bodily harm. Many of these incidents can be avoided.
There have been numerous attempts to create wrong way detection systems to prevent head on collisions between such vehicles. However, these systems have not been widely implemented and suffer from some significant deficiencies. Often, the systems are excessively expensive. Cities, counties and other transportation planners are reluctant to make large purchases based on the equipment expense alone. Further, even where warranted, these systems fail to identify all wrong way drivers, provide too many false alarms or false detections, and demand excessive maintenance in terms of monitoring and equipment upkeep.
In the case of a false detection or false detection, it is highly disruptive to dispatch emergency personnel and vehicles to a certain vicinity when no actual wrong way driver is operating a vehicle in a direction opposite to regular traffic flow. Often, when emergency personnel arrive in the area, it is too late and the damage has been done. While some detection systems have been successfully implemented, the cost has been excessive for the vast majority of potential installation points. Complicating this fact, only a few incidents per month or per year actually occur at particular at-risk locations. However, in the aggregate, substantial harm to families and communities continues to happen every year due to avoidable head-on collisions.